While my first love is still visual astronomy, I've also fallen in love with

astrophotography over the last dozen years or so. While you can get a great

view of the Butler heavens with your naked eyes or through your telescope,

visual astronomy has limitations, especially when seeing fainter detail and

color. I'm not knocking our eyes, nor am I knocking telescopes. Both are

highly efficient at gathering light. The problem is that our eyes only process

a limited amount of light.

However, a camera can accumulate and store much more light than our

eyes, even if you’re using a telescope. Photos can bring out a lot more

detail and color. In all honesty, one of the biggest disappointments people

have when they buy a telescope and look through it is that they don't see

the same detail and color that’s seen in astronomical photographs. Again,

it's not your telescope. It’s because your eyes cannot accumulate light the

same way a camera does.

In the old days, astrophotography using film was real drudgery! Among

the many limitations, you had no idea how good or bad your shot was until

you developed the pictures, and most folks had to pay somebody else to do

that for you! After personally experimenting with film astrophotography

back in the early 80s, I concluded that it just wasn't worth the time and

expense. Many others felt the same. In the ’90s, digital photography

changed everything! You could instantly see your results. No more waiting

for days to see how your shots turned out.

One of the simplest forms of digital astrophotography with a telescope

is taking a smartphone or any other camera and shooting right through the

scope's eyepiece. You can get some amazing photos, especially with

brighter celestial objects like the moon, planets, or even some bright deep-

sky targets like the Orion Nebula, now available in the evening sky.

The biggest challenge is holding your phone steady enough over the

eyepiece. On some of the latest models, you can set the camera app on

your phone to night mode to significantly reduce or even eliminate camera

movement. I can tell you from personal experience that the iPhone 13 has

this option. You can also purchase adapters that will steadily hold the lens

of the camera or smartphone over the eyepiece of your telescope. You can

buy these adapters for anywhere from $25 to $100. Most of them are

universal and will fit most phones. I'm a real fan of the Orion Telescopes

SteadyPix Pro Universal Camera/Smartphone eyepiece mount. You can

purchase one directly from Orion Telescopes for $49.99. As the name

indicates, you can attach a smartphone or a small digital camera to it.

With some of the newer smartphones, it's also possible to take wide-

field images of the night sky without a telescope and get some amazing

results. You can capture entire constellations, especially in the darker

countryside! You don’t absolutely have to, but it helps to use an adapter to

attach your phone to a tripod.

Another thing to consider when taking astrophotography with a

smartphone and telescope is the exposure time. You won’t need any more

than just standard exposure time for images of the moon and the brighter

planets. But to get more details and better colors from fainter objects,

you'll need more exposure time. Unless your telescope has a drive system

that keeps up with the Earth's rotation, your absolute limit for exposure

time is 30 seconds, which may be pushing it. With too much exposure time,

your targets will appear blurry and streaky. You can usually get by with an

exposure of 10 seconds or less. With most phones you need to download

an app to control exposure time, ISO and focal ratio. Since phone cameras,

and telescopes vary so much, you should play around with the values to

get the best pictures possible. I use an app called ProShot on my iPhone.

Higher-level astrophotography with longer exposures and more quality

requires sizable investments of time, money and patience but can be very

rewarding. Many astronomy outlets can help you get

started and get you deeper into the realm of astrophotography. I think one

of the best places is Starizona in Tucson, Ariz. Dean Koenig, the owner

of Starizona, developed a unique adaptive lens, the Hyperstar. It's a

tremendous advancement! It allows your telescope to gather light into your

DSLR camera or astrophotography imager much faster. That makes it

possible to get some really nice images even in places plagued with light

pollution. To learn much more about the Hyperstar lens and

astrophotography in general, check out starizona.com. They've helped

many people, including yours truly.

Before taking the giant leap into heavy-duty astrophotography, though,

have fun with your smartphone – with or without a small-to-moderate size

telescope. Capture the light, but be patient!

———

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and retired broadcast

meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is the author

of "Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations," published by

Adventure Publications and available at bookstores

and adventurepublications.net .Contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.